A continuing need exists for highlighting information on pages in order to emphasis such information. Thus, for example, a major market exists for highlight markers. Marker emphasis is simple and visual in nature. In the legal industry, for example, highlighted text from legal briefs can be used to form new documents. An attorney may mark a document with colors demonstrating the “pros” and “cons” of a particular case for both the defendant and prosecution. Administration support is typically responsible for transcribing the highlighted portions of the document and then searching through a document repository for related information.
Often, it is desirable to differentiate between regions of a document which have been “highlighted” with, for example, a highlighter pen, from regions of a document which have not been highlighted. The term “highlighted” as utilized herein is intended to mean marks in a document that have been differentiated from remaining marks by a region which has a substantially different gray scale than the background or marks of the original document. Such marks can be made, for example, by way of well known “Hi-Liter” pens, “Major Accent” pens, and other pens which produce bright but relatively transparent colors.
Electronic storage of documents has facilitated the handling of large volumes of documents, such as those handled by hospitals, universities, government institutions, and the like. Typically, the documents are entered into massive storage systems by use of a scanner system that converts text into electronic data. Once the documents are stored, there is a need to retrieve selected documents, or selected pages from the documents. For example, a hospital may choose to maintain all patient charts in a computer storage system, while possessing the ability to selectively “call up” a document for viewing and editing.
Existing systems typically address the need for selectively retrieving a document by assigning an index to the document as it is entered into storage. The index may be system-generated or based on a user-defined code. The code is then stored together with the document. To retrieve a document, a user must enter the appropriate code associated with the desired document. Other systems use predetermined key words extracted from the document, which the user may then use to subsequently retrieve a document. The problem encountered with such systems is that a user must know the index, or code, associated with a desired document. If a user enters an inappropriate index or code, then the target document may not be retrieved.
In an effort to address the foregoing difficulties, it is believed that the ability to automatically retrieve documents based on highlighted text as discussed in greater detail herein can address many of the problems with traditional document retrieval methods and systems. It is believed that the implementation of an improved method and system as disclosed herein can reduce additional time and effort spent in the retrieval of documents.